For more than five years, the PSP version has provided the closest approximation of the stripped-down FM experience that many of us naturally gravitate towards, and this year's edition continues to stick doggedly to those sensibilities.

A short, disappointing downhill slide through clumsy and frustrating renditions of more modern, characterless stages. Drooping from joyous classic to dissatisfying mediocrity in just a few hours of gameplay, Generations on the 3DS provides a surprisingly handy microcosm of Sonic's decline over the years. Not the best anniversary present, then.

A frighteningly moreish game that represents ludicrous value for money, and is highly recommended to anyone taken to competitive twin-stick shooters.

If you've never owned a Simbin game and you own a decent driving wheel, then Race Injection could do the job, but rest assured that you're buying an old simulation both for graphics and gameplay.

A game using this toy technology with the depth and breadth of Pokemon, or the variety and replayability of the Lego games, would be absolutely amazing. For now, "pretty good" will have to do.

On its initial release, this wonderful piece of work was all but ditched at retail by a publisher that didn't seem to understand what it was dealing with. Now Stranger's Wrath has finally received the lavish treatment it deserves, and the gaming world has a chance to reclaim one of its brightest treasures.

The novelty of repeated bucket-kicking has dampened a little. And towards the end, the game just starts throwing high-level bastards in your face to see how many you can take. The core formula that defined Infinity Blade and made it so interesting has been tarnished in the move to write an App Store description with some higher numbers than before.

It might be a little cruel to pick apart World of Tanks like this while it's still in beta, but Wargaming.net is nevertheless charging people for a boxed copy. Still, the game is progressing well and constantly seeing new maps and new tanks added, with a whole slew of French units soon to be released.

I really, really hope the developer gets a second crack at Move Fitness, as the core concept clearly works and there are some screamingly obvious things that, if added, would make the game a much better, potentially excellent, fitness game. But as it stands, what should be Mr. Motivator is very much Mr. Average.

As a lovingly crafted evolution to one of oldest and most respected fighting series in gaming, KOF 13 is - hands down - Playmore's greatest accomplishment in years.

To call this a bad game would be grossly unfair, but it's a truly unexceptional one. For a series like Shinobi, that is dishonour enough.

If you have the free code then there's no reason not to give Bloodbath Arena a try, even if all it really adds is a place to quickly grind your way up a few levels. As a paid download, however, it's uninspired stuff.

It isn't bad, but set next to last year's Donkey Kong Country Returns, or even Ubisoft's zesty Rayman Origins, this winter's other other platformer feels very vanilla by comparison.

It's robust, but it lacks some creative effort on Nintendo's part. Newcomers will love it, while series stalwarts will find its novelties welcome, if largely inconsequential. But it's nevertheless one of the stronger entries in the series, balancing the orthodox precision of the original with the playful silliness of the more recent iterations more successfully than ever.

The convincing banter between the two doctors, the tale of John's carer and her relationship with her children, the stories of friends and families and how they intersect along the passage of life... To the Moon takes the details of human life in its stride, and delivers them with a breezy effortlessness.

Serious Sam 3 does what it set out to do and nothing more. A faithful and heartfelt ode to old-school FPS carnage, it certainly delivers the dumb fun that Duke Nukem Forever so dismally failed to recapture - and that, for many retro-heads, will be more than enough.

A soulless cash-in that has little to do with its license, and nor is it much fun in its own right. If you're lucky enough to not encounter any game-breaking bugs and if you have a friend or two to play with, then it can be pretty entertaining for a few hours. But that's a lot of "ifs" for so little payoff, since overlong levels and axe-sponge enemies inevitably whittle this dungeon crawl down into a slog.

Ironically for a series based around the idea of a carefully staged experience that collapses into unpredictable chaos, you're always more passenger than participant on this visit to Jurassic Park.

Your long-term attachment to the game will also be determined by how much of an experience grind you're prepared to undertake (combined with your attitude towards impermanent purchases), and whether the hack-and-slash combat against somewhat repetitive character models is a meaty enough adventure to keep you satisfied.

In short, Mario & Sonic's London outing is much like their Beijing sojourn of late 2007. It'll keep younger children in particular amused and entertained over Christmas, and it's a safe bet for festive family fun if you have enough controllers to go around.

But the true wonder of the game is in its clockwork structure, the way dynamic story and environments that shift with time thread with the permanence of its collectibles and secrets. There is an intricacy of design here as impressive as any of the miniature towns on view at Legoland.

Ultimate is a finely tuned evolution that should be held in a similar regard to Super Street Fighter IV. It takes the flexible combat system from the previous game, irons out many of the niggling issues and expands the possibilities even further, because no matter how you look at it, that's the type of fighting game Marvel is.

Minecraft is a towering achievement in the very possibilities of gaming, and it does this without losing itself to either esoterica or cynicism. It is a game anyone can play and anyone can get something out of, no matter how skilled or imaginative they are. They will make something and they will have an experience that feels like theirs and theirs alone.

Medieval Moves' downfall is how repetitive it becomes. This is a game clearly designed for kids, yet the sheer exhausting monotony of bashing your way through each level is never rewarded with any meaningful pay-off, just more of the same against a different backdrop.

The Random Encounter makes for a short game, but an extremely enjoyable one, the two-hour campaign providing you with plenty of hectic victories and glorious defeats. It also leaves you with an Endless Mode, some lovely pixelated memories, and that warm feeling that only comes from seeing something very new built from ideas that are very, very old.

It's an adventure for kids, but it's also a museum, a diorama, and a weird kind of historical document - and that's a combination that only video games could have given us.

Where Is My Heart? is a video game about video games - about the possibilities that still lurk within even the busiest of genres, and of great new ideas brought to life by ingenuity, focus, and flair.

Metal Gear Solid is a potpourri of ideas that insists you take the good with the bad. Certainly indulgent, it's also melancholy, exhilarating, clever, and ludicrous. It's never entirely clear what, if anything, Kojima and company are taking seriously - and the end result, in this collection, is a fascinating chronicle of one of video games' strangest successes.